Sep 20, 2017 Tech support scams are an industry-wide issue where scammers trick you into paying for unnecessary technical support services. You can help protect yourself from scammers by verifying that the contact is a Microsoft Agent or Microsoft Employee and that the phone number is an official Microsoft global customer service number. To open a list of keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs, press Ctrl + / (Windows, Chrome OS) or ⌘ + / (Mac). To search the menus, press Alt + / (Windows, Chrome OS) or Option + / (Mac). You can also use menu access keys. Open any application menu using the keyboard, then type the underlined letter for the item you'd like to select.
If you use PowerPoint at work or at home, keyboard shortcuts can be a great time saver. Here are some little-known keyboard shortcuts I’ve discovered over the last few years while working on the PowerPoint team. These keyboard shortcuts are designed for PowerPoint for Windows. If you are using PowerPoint for Mac, you can still use them if you replace Ctrl with CMD (⌘) unless stated otherwise. I hope you find these keyboard shortcuts as useful as I have!
Draw horizontal or vertical lines
Press and hold the Shift key while inserting lines to make sure they are perfectly horizontal, vertical or at a 45-degree angle.
Keep objects in proportion
Press and hold the Shift key while resizing shapes and other objects to keep their proportions consistent. This is handy if you want to resize a circle without accidentally turning it into an oval.
Duplicate an object
Adding a bunch of identical objects? Just select your object and press Ctrl+D to duplicate it. This also works on slides.
Copy and paste formatting
If you want to format an object to look just like another object without reapplying all of the formatting by hand, use the formatting clipboard. Select the object whose formatting you want to copy and press Ctrl+Shift+C. Then, select the objects that you want to have the same formatting and press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the formatting. This also works on the slide thumbnails if you have a slide background or theme that you want to copy from slide to slide.
This keyboard shortcut makes use of the Format Painter feature, which also allows you to copy formatting from one shape to another. The keyboard shortcut is a good one to remember since it packs even more power—once you’ve copied the formatting, you can paste the formatting onto as many shapes as you like without having to copy it again.
Group and ungroup
To group objects together, just select the objects and press Ctrl+G. To ungroup, select the object and press Ctrl+Shift+G. If you’re a Mac user, press CMD+Option+G to group and CMD+Option+Shift+G to ungroup.
Insert a new slide
Press Ctrl+M to insert a new slide after the currently selected slide. For PowerPoint for Mac, the keyboard shortcut is the same; you don’t need to substitute CMD.
Zoom
Press and hold the Ctrl key while using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out in the editor. On a touch device, you can pinch to zoom. For PowerPoint for Mac, this is another one where you don’t have to substitute CMD.
Center or align text
To quickly center text, press Ctrl+E. Not happy with your centered text? To go back to left alignment, press Ctrl+L, or press Ctrl+R to right align the text.
Clear formatting
To remove all formatting from selected text, press Ctrl+Spacebar. This will reset the text back to the default formatting.
PowerPoint content placeholders have logic built in to make sure your text has the right size and formatting to match the rest of your presentation. If you’ve changed the formatting for some text or you have pasted in text that already had formatting on it, you can use the clear formatting shortcut to make the text match the design of the rest of your presentation again.
To clear formatting on PowerPoint for Mac, simply click the Clear Formatting button on the Home tab.
Start Slideshow
Done editing and ready to present? To start a Slideshow from the first slide, just press F5. If you want to start from the current slide, press Shift+F5 instead.
As a bonus, here are a few more keyboard shortcuts you might have forgotten about. Happy editing!
Action | Windows | Mac |
Select all | Ctrl+A | ⌘+A |
Bold | Ctrl+B | ⌘+B |
Copy | Ctrl+C | ⌘+C |
Paste | Ctrl+V | ⌘+V |
Undo | Ctrl+Z | ⌘+Z |
Redo | Ctrl+Y | ⌘+Y |
Save | Ctrl+S | ⌘+S |
New presentation | Ctrl+N | ⌘+N |
Find text | Ctrl+F | ⌘+F |
Check spelling | F7 | F7 |
![Keyboard Shortcut For Strikethrough Mac Keyboard Shortcut For Strikethrough Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134050608/176724085.jpg)
—Lauren Janas, program manager for the PowerPoint team
This short tutorial explains different ways to add, use and remove strikethrough format in Excel desktop, Excel Online and Excel for Mac.
Excel is great for manipulating numbers, but it does not always make clear how to format text values the way you want. Strikethrough is a vivid example.
It is super easy to cross out text in Microsoft Word - you simply click the strikethrough button on the ribbon. Naturally, you'd expect to see the same button on the Excel ribbon. But it's nowhere to be found. So, how do I strikethrough text in Excel? By using any of the six methods described in this tutorial :)
- How to do strikethrough in Excel
How to strikethrough in Excel
To ensure that everyone is on the same page, let's define the term first. What does it mean to strikethrough in Excel? Simply, to put a line through a value in a cell. There are a handful of different ways to do this, and we are going to begin with the fastest one.
Excel strikethrough shortcut
Want to have the job done as quickly as possible? Press a hotkey or key combination.
Here's the keyboard shortcut to strikethrough in Excel: Ctrl + 5
The shortcut can be used on an entire cell, certain part of the cell contents, or a range of cells.
To apply the strikethrough format to a cell, select that cell, and press the shortcut:
To draw a line through all values in a range, select the range:
To strikethrough non-adjacent cells, select multiple cells while holding the Ctrl key, and then press the strikethrough shortcut:
To cross out part of the cell value, double-click the cell to enter the Edit mode, and select the text you want to strikethrough:
Apply strikethrough via cell format options
Another quick way to draw a line through a cell value in Excel is by using the Format Cells dialog. Here's how:
- Select one or more cells on which you want to apply the strikethrough format.
- Press Ctrl + 1 or right-click the selected cell(s) and choose Format Cells… from the context menu.
- In the Format Cells dialog box, go to the Font tab, and tick off the Strikethrough option under Effects.
- Click OK to save the change and close the dialog.
Add a strikethrough button to Quick Access Toolbar
If you think that the above method requires too many steps, add the strikethrough button to the Quick Access Toolbar to always have it at your fingertips.
- Click the small arrow in the upper left corner of the Excel window, and then click More Commands…
- Under Choose commands from, select Commands Not in the Ribbon, then select Strikethrough in the list of commands, and click the Add button. This will add Strikethrough to the list of commands on the right pane, and you click OK:
Look at the upper left corner of your worksheet again, and you will find the new button there:
Put a strikethrough button onto Excel ribbon
If your Quick Access Toolbar is reserved only for the most frequently used commands, which strikethrough is not, place it onto the ribbon instead. As with QAT, it's also one-time setup, performed in this way:
- Right-click anywhere on the ribbon and select Customize the Ribbon… from the pop-up menu:
- Since new buttons can only be added to custom groups, let's create one. For this, select the target tab (Home in our case) and click the New Group button. Then, click Rename… to name the newly created group to your liking, say My Formats:
- With the new group selected, perform the already familiar steps: under Choose commands from, select Commands Not in the Ribbon, find Strikethrough in the list of commands, select it, and click Add:
- Click OK to save the changes, and find the Strikethrough button on your Excel ribbon:
You can now cross out text in Excel with a single button click! And it will also remind you the keyboard shortcut in case you forget it :)
Tip. By using Up and Down arrows in the Excel Options dialog box, you can move your custom group with the Strikethrough button to any position on the ribbon:
How to strikethrough automatically with conditional formatting
In case you are planning to use a strikethrough to cross out the completed tasks or activities in a checklist or to-do list, you may want Excel to do it for you automatically as you enter some text in a related cell, for example 'done':
![Strikethrough Strikethrough](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134050608/859904149.gif)
The task can be easily accomplished with Excel Conditional Formatting:
- Select all the cells you want to cross out on condition (A2:A6 in this example).
- On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting > New Rule…
- In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
- In the Format values where this formula is true box, enter the formula that expresses the condition for your topmost cell:
=$B2='Done'
- Click the Format…
- In the Format Cells dialog box, switch to the Font tab and select the Strikethrough Optionally, you can make some other formatting changes, e.g. set a light grey font color for crossed out entries:
- Click OK to close the Format Cells dialog box, then click OK one more time to close the New Formatting Rule window, and you are all set!
Instead of defining a task status with text, you can insert checkboxes, link them to some cells (which you can hide later) and base your conditional formatting rule on the value in the linked cells (TRUE is a checkbox is checked, FALSE if not checked).
As the result, Excel will check off the completed tasks automatically depending on whether the checkbox is selected or not.
If you'd like to create something similar in your worksheets, the detailed steps can be found here: How to create a checklist with conditional formatting.
Add strikethrough with a macro
If you are not allergic to using VBA in your Excel worksheets, you can apply strikethrough on all selected cells with this line of code:
The step-by-step instructions on how to insert VBA code in Excel can be found here.
How to use strikethrough in Excel Online
In Excel Online, the strikethrough option is exactly where you'd expect to find it - next to the other formatting buttons on the Home tab, in the Font group:
However, there's a fly in the ointment - it's not possible to select non-adjacent cells or ranges in Excel Online. So, if you need to cross out multiple entries in different parts of your sheet, you will have to select each cell or a range of contiguous cells individually, and then click the strikethrough button.
The strikethrough shortcut (Ctrl + 5) works perfectly in Excel Online too and is often the fastest way to toggle the strikethrough formatting on and off.
How to strikethrough in Excel for Mac
A quick way to strikethrough text in Excel for Mac is by using this keyboard shortcut: ⌘ + SHIFT + X
It can also be done from the Format Cells dialog in the same way as in Excel for Windows:
- Select the cell(s) or part of a cell value you wish to cross out.
- Right-click the selection and chose Format Cells from the popup menu.
- In the Format Cells dialog box, switch to the Font tab and select the Strikethrough checkbox:
How to remove strikethrough in Excel
The correct way to remove strikethrough from a cell depends on how you've added it.
Remove strikethrough added manually
If you applied strikethrough via a shortcut or cell format, then press Ctrl + 5 again, and the formatting will be gone.
A longer way would be opening the Format Cells dialog (Ctrl + 1) and unchecking the Strikethrough box there:
Remove strikethrough added with conditional formatting
If strikethrough is added by a conditional formatting rule, then you need to remove that rule to get rid of strikethrough.
To have it done, select all the cells from which you want to remove strikethrough, go to the Home tab > Styles group, and click Conditional Formatting > Clear Rules > Clear Rules from Selected Cells:
If some other conditional formatting rule(s) is applied to the same cells and you'd like to keep that rule, then click conditional Formatting > Manage Rules… and delete only the strikethrough rule.
Keyboard Shortcut For Strikethrough
For more information, please see How to delete conditional formatting rules in Excel.
Keyboard Shortcut For Strikethrough Mac
That's how you can add and remove the strikethrough formatting in Excel. I thank you for reading and hope to see you on our blog next week!